Game Mechanics

This is an overview page of all game mechanics in the Etrian Odyssey series.

Guild Creation

Conducted at the Explorers Guild at the start of each game. Start with giving your Guild a name. This name cannot be changed once decided.

Adding Guild Members

Guild members are recruited through the Register function in the Explorers Guild. During creation, you decide the guild member's class, portrait, and name. In Etrian Odyssey V: Beyond the Myth and Etrian Odyssey Nexus you also can customize their color palettes and voice banks. After creation, the character is registered as part of the guild with their starter equipment on hand.

Your party typically consists of five guild members, split between a front and back row. Either row can accommodate up to three guild members. Members in back row take reduced damage but also deal reduced melee damage. Arrange your guild members into your party formation using the "Formation" option. You can save these formations and quickly call them up with the "Muster" option.

Stats

• Level - Overall strength of the guild member. Some formulas take the combatant's level into account for calculations. Level cap is 70 (99 in Etrian Odyssey Nexus) but can be raised through various methods.
• HP - Short for Hit Points. The party member is dead if it reaches 0. You get a Game Over if all members of your active party are dead.
• TP - Short for Talent Points. Used as cost for skills.
• STR - Strength: Affects strength of physical attacks.
• TEC - Technique: Affects strength of magic attacks and defense against elemental damage.
• VIT - Vitality: Affects defense against physical damage.
• AGI - Agility: Affects action speed, accuracy, evasion, and escape rate.
• LUC - Luck: Affects ailment/bind infliction rates, aliment/bind resistance, and critical hit chance.
• INT - Intelligence: Affects strength of magic attacks (Etrian Odyssey V: Beyond the Myth onwards)
• WIS - Wisdom: Affects strength of healing skills and defense against magic damage. (Etrian Odyssey V: Beyond the Myth onwards)

City

Inn

Rest at the inn to fully restore your party's HP and TP, while causing time to pass to either 7AM or 7PM. Resting incurs a fee of 5en multiplied by the level of the highest-levelled party member.

You can revive dead or petrified party members (a feature established from Etrian Odyssey III: The Drowned City), at the cost of 5en multiplied by that party member's level.

You can also store items (a feature established from Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard) if you don't need them now but don't want to sell them off to make inventory room.

Hospital

Available only in Etrian Odyssey and Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard, you can revive your fallen party members here, at the cost of 5en multiplied by that party member's level.

Shop

Purchase and sell items here. The materials you find in the labyrinth are used to expand and replenish the shop stock once sold. Depending on game, you can also upgrade your equipment through forging.

Quest Bar

Accept quests here. Completing side quests earns you rewards like money, items, and experience (from Etrian Odyssey III: The Drowned City onwards). You can also talk to bar patrons to get hints on monster behavior or conditional drops.

Explorers Guild

Manage your guild members, assign subclasses/mastery (where applicable), and switch members in and out of your active party.

Rest

Reset a party member's skill points/subclass/mastery so that you can re-assign them, at the cost of a level penalty. In Etrian Odyssey the resting party member loses 10 levels. In Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard, Etrian Odyssey III: The Drowned City, and all three HD remakes of the DS games, this level penalty is 5. In Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan and all 3DS games, this level penalty is 2.

Retire

Removes a party member and gets a new one to take their place, with the apprentice gaining a stat bonus and extra skill points based on the level of the previous retiree. The apprentice can still be the exact same class, portrait, and name as the retiree.

In Etrian Odyssey the apprentice is a level 1 character, gaining a small bonus to a single stat based on the retiree's level and class. From Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard onwards, the apprentice's level is half that of the retiree (to a maximum of 30) and gains a bonus to all stats based on the retiree's level.

In Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl and Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold: The Fafnir Knight, the Story Party cannot retire. The Story Party of Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold: The Fafnir Knight can instead use a "Train" option that bestows the stat bonuses of Retiring (level reduction included) without replacing them.

Alter Class

Present for Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl, Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold: The Fafnir Knight, and Etrian Odyssey V: Beyond the Myth. This changes a character's class without altering their portrait, stat spread, or race. The character's level is halved but also gains stat and skill point bonuses as if they Retired.

In Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl, this is how the Story Party can gain Retire bonuses despite not being able to Retire normally, and how regular guild members in Classic Mode can access the Highlander and Gunner classes.

In Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold: The Fafnir Knight, the Fafnir Knight and any Beasts in the guild cannot use this function, and other guild members cannot Alter their class to Beast or Fafnir.

Mission Center

Receive missions that are crucial to story progression.

Monstrous Codex

Review the details of monsters you've encountered. From Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan onwards you can also review monster analysis data mid-battle. Analysis data is only revealed after you've defeated or scanned the monster (with an item like an Analysis Scope, or similar skills).

From Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold: The Fafnir Knight onwards (and the HD remasters), analysis data and Codex entries include monster's aliment/bind vulnerabilities in addition to elemental affinities. Neutral affinity is depicted with ◯. Resistance is △. Immunity is X. Weakness is ◎.

City Escape

Commence your expeditions in the labyrinth from here.

Labyrinth

Each games' first mission is a mapping tutorial to demonstrate its mechanics. By default, the floor is painted on as you walk through the labyrinth, and you have to draw in walls and drag over icons by yourself. How much gets drawn by automap can be adjusted in the Options menu. The map for each floor is managed through the mapping screen (the touch screen for DS/3DS games, or a section on the side of the screen for the HD releases) and can be edited at nearly any time, even in the midst of battle. The map is drawn through a 35x30 grid, with each 5x5 section given its label on the side of the screen, going from row A to row F and column 1 to column 7. To aid in pinpointing locations, this wiki will refer to each 5x5 square as a "sector" and label each sector based on the row and column labels (A-2, B-6, etc)

The party has an inventory that can hold up to 60 items with each copy of an item using one slot. Having enough supplies and spare equipment while also leaving enough room for items gained during exploration, such as the spoils of battle which can be sold for a profit, is crucial.

Exploration

Your current location is depicted as a green circle with a triangle showing where you face. The main exploration screen is a first-person view of the labyrinth, where you can see your immediate surroundings. Movement is done with the D-Pad, side-stepping (from Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard onwards) with the L and R buttons, and interaction with the A button.

The top-left corner of the main screen displays the current time, and the day gradually shifts from dawn to dusk and back again. Every 30 steps and/or turns spent in combat equates one in-game hour. The time of day plays an importance in the labyrinth ― all gather points reset at midnight, and certain enemies may behave differently depending on whether it is day or night.

Of note are FOEs, which are strong enemies that serve as obstacles during navigation. Different FOEs have different behaviors that determine the navigation puzzle for their territory. FOEs move with the player, and will still move around for every turn spent in battle. FOEs are best to be avoided on sight, and can barge into battle if they catch up to a player in the middle of combat.

The bottom-right corner of the main screen is a small orb that glows in a certain color. This indicates how likely a random encounter is going to happen at the next step, going from blue → yellow → red before a random encounter is triggered. When you are near an FOE, the random encounter orb will also display a proximity gauge that fills up the closer you are to it. Ideally, you do not want to be near an FOE when the random encounter orb is flashing red.

Intermittently, you can find Geomagnetic Poles. These serve as checkpoints from where you can begin your expeditions, easily return to town, or save your game.

Battle Mechanics

Every party member starts with three Skill Points, and gains one for every level they gain. Skill points are assigned through the Custom option in the main menu, and can be done either in town or in the labyrinth. Skills must need at least one skill point invested in them for them to become available and take effect.

Layout

Your party has two rows, front and back. Each row can only accommodate a maximum of three combatants, and you can deploy up to five guild members in your party. There must always be at least one member in the front row. Characters in the back take reduced physical damage, but deal reduced physical damage (with exception to ranged weapons like bows and guns, and associated skills). If the entire front row is knocked out, the back row is dragged to the front.

Your party's formation can only be rearranged mid-battle from Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard onwards, and on its first implementation, swapping a party member's position took up their action for the turn, unless this was part of their combat skills. In Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan onwards, you can freely change the party formation in the middle of battle, though you must always have at least one live party member in the front row.

From Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan onwards, enemy formations have lines too, and follow the same rules as your party. Attack skills also distinguish themselves as melee and ranged. Melee attacks conducted from the back row cannot reach targets in the opposing back row. Melee attacks will only do full damage from a front row character attacking a front row target, and do half damage anywhere else. Ranged attacks can hit anyone from anywhere without any damage penalty.

If an attack does "splash damage", it will deal full damage to its primary target, and any targets to its immediate left and right will take half damage. The exception is for weapons with the splash forge in Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan, where splash damage from normal attacks will do less than half damage depending on the number of splash forge icons.

If a skill pierces enemy rows, it can hit up to two targets, one in the front row and another in the back (unless it's a melee attack being execute from the back row, so it can only hit an enemy in the front). If a melee attack is capable of piercing rows, the back row will take half damage. Ranged row-piercing attacks will do full damage to both targets with an exception for weapons with the pierce forge in Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan, where the back row will take less than full damage depending on the number of pierce forge icons.

Attacks that hit "random targets" will randomly distribute their hits among all available enemies, though some will have restrictions on how many hits a single enemy can take. Certain multi-hit attacks deal a randomized number of hits and can strike the same enemy multiple times. For these skills, this wiki will not only display the damage per hit, but also display a damage range for expected damage (min hits to max hits) if all those hits converged on a single enemy and none of those attacks miss.

Combat

Before combat begins, the game checks for if the party gets a preemptive round or they get blindsided. If the party has the preemptive, they get one turn where enemies cannot act and escape is guaranteed. If the party is blindsided, the enemies get one turn to act before the party can respond.

Each party member has a selection of options to choose from in between each round of combat:

• Attack - Perform a normal attack with the equipped weapon.
• Skill - Use any of their available skills, usually taking up TP in the process.
• Defend - Reduce damage taken and susceptibility to ailments/binds for the turn.
• Item - Use an item from the party's communal inventory.
• Switch - (Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard onwards) Rearrange the party formation.
• Escape - Attempt to flee the battle.

After all party members have chosen their action, the game executes all actions from both sides of battle, queuing actions with higher Action Speed first. Typically, combatants with higher Agility get to go first, but some skills and equipment offer Action Speed modifiers that can influence the turn order.

Pressing L initiates auto-battle which speeds up all battle animations and makes your party members all perform normal attacks on the enemy (targets chosen randomly) until auto-battle is cancelled with the L button or the battle ends. In Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold: The Fafnir Knight onwards you are given an extra prompt to confirm your decision to initiate auto-battle, given the inherent risk of accidentally triggering it in a high-stakes fight.

Combatants can receive up to three buffs and debuffs apiece, and if a fourth will be applied, the oldest (topmost) will be removed so the new buff/debuff can take its place. Buffs and debuffs of opposite polarity can cancel each other out ― for instance, a defense debuff will negate a defense buff, regardless of the strength of either skill. If a buff/debuff is already in effect and is applied again, its duration will be reset (Etrian Odyssey and Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard) or extended to a maximum of 9 turns (Etrian Odyssey III: The Drowned City onwards), applying the level of the most recent casting even if it's weaker overall. (The exception is in Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl, where the stronger of the two versions will still apply and is how a Boosted buff can be extended.) You can review active buffs and debuffs across the party the Y button (Info).

At the end of each turn, the game ticks down the duration of all buffs and debuffs by 1, including the turn they are applied. Normally, to account for this, all buffs and debuffs have a duration that lasts 1 turn longer than printed. This programming quirk becomes visible when a buff is applied at the start of battle through a passive ability - it will last one turn longer than usual, because the game doesn't apply the end-of-turn tick-down at the start of battle. If buff/debuff timer is frozen by an effect (e.g. Troubadour's War Song Force Boost) and buffs/debuffs are cast, the additional turn becomes visible as well since the end-of-turn tick-down is skipped.

Pressing R (Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan onwards) lets you bring up the analysis data of an enemy mid-battle, and also lets you see any active buffs/debuffs on that enemy. Toggle your targets with the left and right buttons on the D-pad. You can only see the analysis data of an enemy whose Codex entry you already have, either through defeating it or analyzing it with certain items or skills.

Ailments

Each combatant can receive up to one ailment. Ailments form a "hierarchy", depicted on the enemy analysis info (where applicable) with ailments on the left of the row overriding ailments on the right of the row. An ailment higher on the hierarchy will always override one that is lower, and attempts to inflict lower-hierarchy ailments on an enemy with a higher-hierarchy ailment will always fail. The exception is stun, which can be applied in conjunction with other ailments.

These are the ailments that appear within the Etrian Odyssey series, in descending order of hierarchy:

• Stun - Renders the combatant unable to act or move. Always wears off at end of turn. Stun can be applied in addition to any ailment on any combatant.
• Instant Death - Immediately kills the combatant.
• Petrify - Turns the combatant to stone, reducing the physical damage they take but prevents them from acting.
  • In all games before Etrian Odyssey V: Beyond the Myth, petrified enemies are immediately removed from battle, while petrified party members are also considered dead (contributing to the Game Over condition) and the ailment persists outside of battle.
  • In Etrian Odyssey V: Beyond the Myth and Etrian Odyssey Nexus, petrified combatants are not considered dead. The ailment wears off over time and is cured at the end of battle like any other ailment.
• Fear - (Etrian Odyssey, Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard, Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl, Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold: The Fafnir Knight, Etrian Odyssey HD and Etrian Odyssey II HD) The combatant has a 50% chance of being unable to act. Party members that fail to act this way also lose TP in the process.
• Curse - Whenever the combatant deals damage with an attack, they take damage equal to half of what they dealt.
• Plague - (Etrian Odyssey III: The Drowned City and Etrian Odyssey III HD) The combatant takes damage at end of turn. This ailment also has a base 10% chance of spreading to allies of the afflicted.
• Poison - The combatant takes damage at end of turn.
• Sleep - The combatant cannot act or dodge. If they get attacked, they take 50% more damage, in exchange for waking up immediately.
• Panic - The combatant is unable to dodge or be commanded, and will randomly conduct a normal attack to any combatant each turn, including their allies or themselves.
• Paralysis - The combatant cannot dodge, and they have a 50% chance of being unable to act.
• Blind - The combatant takes a large penalty to hit rate and evasion.

Binds

The Etrian Odyssey series also features binds for these body parts: Head, arm and leg. Most skills require specific body parts to be used however binding the required body part will disable these skills. Each body part can be bound separately and do not prevent ailments from from being inflicted.

• Head Bind - Prevents the combatant from casting spells, or using headbutts, biting attacks, or breath attacks. Reduces TEC and impairs accuracy.
• Arm Bind - Prevents use of most physical skills. Reduces STR.
• Leg Bind - Prevents the combatant from evading attacks (from Etrian Odyssey III: The Drowned City onwards) or escaping battle (from Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard onwards), and prevents kicking, running, or tail-based attacks. Reduces AGI.

At the end of battle, the experience from each defeated enemy is tallied up and then distributed evenly across every surviving party member. All ailments and binds (except for petrifaction or death) wear off at the end of battle. You can also earn a maximum of eight items from a single battle. If you would exceed your inventory capacity, you must discard from your current inventory if you want to make room for the item drops.

Detailed Formulas

• Etrian Odyssey
• Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard
• Etrian Odyssey III: The Drowned City
• Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan
• Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl
• Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold: The Fafnir Knight
• Etrian Odyssey V: Beyond the Myth
• Etrian Odyssey Nexus